The Story Of A Girl

And now you ask me, through your tears,
The age old question, unanswered through the years
Heredity or Environment, which are you the product of?
Neither, my darling, neither, just two different kinds of love.
-Author Unknown

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She never really had a sense of belonging in her family; in fact, she disowned them for most of her childhood. She knew something wasn’t quite right, but she just never knew how to handle it

She met her biological mother, Laura, when she was 17 years old and her biological father, Mark, a year or so later. At that time in her life, she had no interest meeting her, and honestly was upset with her adopted mother because she had insisted. She didn’t understand why Laura had given her up for adoption, she thought it was because she didn’t want a child, or because she had gotten herself into some kind of trouble and didn’t have a way out.The girl was angry. And rightly so.

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When the girl was a child, she didn’t really have a mother that she felt she could talk too. They were on different planes, and it was very difficult to communicate. She often wondered if it was something that was wrong with her, was it because she wasn't blood-related that this breakdown in communication happened? Was it because she was physically, emotionally and psychologically different from the family she lived with?

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Laura had the girl when she was in her early twenties; she had moved to Charleston, SC to live with her mother, Grandma Beverly, and step-father, Jim, for a little while. The girl never learned much about her biological mother and when she was pregnant with her, but she does know that Laura had already bought baby clothes and decorated a room for her when she decided that she was going to have to give her up for adoption.

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Her parents told her that she was adopted when she was a young child, but that wouldn't keep her from throwing fits and “disowning” her parents because of something they did that made her angry. She used to pretend that she had grown up in an orphanage, and had lived a “hard knock life” and ran away; that was how her parents found her. Other times she would imagine that she had grown up somewhere, but a fire burned the entire place down and she was the only survivor. She had tons of scenarios that she could tell anyone about where she came from or who her family was, but deep down she knew none of them were true. She hated not knowing who she really was, what her “real” family was like, where she came from, and where she got her quirks.

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The girl was adopted privately, so her mom had access to Laura’s contact information, and when she was 17 years old her mom called Laura and invited her to her high school graduation.

The girl was livid.

She didn’t want to talk to her, she didn’t want to meet her, and she certainly didn’t want her mom being friends with her. Regardless of her escape attempts that day, and no matter where she hid, her mother tracked her down and handed her the phone. She felt a little bad because she really didn’t want to talk to the woman on the other end of the phone line, and she knew she had heard her protests. She talked to Laura for about 10 minutes before handing the phone back to her mother, scowling and grumbling quite loudly.

A few weeks later, her adopted family met Laura, her grandmother, great-grandmother, and her youngest biological sister, Melissa, at Cracker Barrel. The girl's parents and her adopted sister, Blaire, got there about 10 minutes early, and waited at their table. She purposefully sat with her back to the door so she wouldn’t have to see them walk in. It was pointless though, she could sense the moment they walked in the door.

It was strangely comforting to see people who looked like her. They got through lunch painlessly, and exchanged phone numbers and she talked to them off and on for the next year before she left for Israel. A few short weeks before she moved, she met Mark; he and Laura had gotten married a couple years after she was born. She’ll never forget the first thing he said to her- “She has my hair!!!” The more she looked at his hair and compared it to hers, the more I realized he was very correct- their hair was identical. They have the same weird hair line, same curls, same color- everything. She had finally found someone who she could tell that she really belonged too. That day, something inside her began to calm down and she finally started to feel this odd feeling of belonging.

She didn't spend a lot of time with Mark and Laura when she first met them. It was still very strange to be around people that she was actually related too. She found it creepy that people she had only known for a short time could know her so well, and she them. She didn’t understand it yet, and it made her a little on edge, and at times, very moody when she went back to her adopted family’s house.

Every child, at some point in their lives, begins to wonder where they came from and who they act or look like in their families. For children that live with their biological parents, or even one biological parent, it is easier to see. Children who are adopted always question, “Who am I?”, “Where did I come from?”, “What is my family like?”, “Where did I get this certain trait?” and too many times, these questions are never answered. Too many times, a child never finds out and that little piece of them remains missing forever. It's never easy.